Excerpt: Human Echoes

He did not realize the severity of his situation until he saw the expiration date on his mountain dew.
Two weeks.
Two weeks until it all expired, like so much else in the twisted lands he inhabited. He took a moment to contemplate his own shelf life. How long until some accident incapacitated his body, or the solitude of these swirling sands to rupture his mind. Not to mention the wandering plagued that would snatch a little less than life, but a little more than free will. He discarded the can.
He stepped forward and paused, staring at the desolate ruins of yet another mountain town. The green street sign stated populations seemed of little value, they had not been accurate in nearly a month. The use of names was a slipping art, as his mind did not associate Grandview with the ruins set before him.
It was not destroyed or burned like so much of the southwest. There were broken windows and scattered cars, pale bodies with skin leathered by the June sun. Trash littered the streets, catching in pockets in building alleys on the town's main drag.
He had learned long before to not let his mind wander while in towns such as these. There would be plenty of time for that on the road, on the motorcycle he left about a quarter mile behind. There was no sense in drawing that sort of attention.
The corner store was not far from the town’s entrance, but it had been barricaded in the same panicked fashion that was so common among the short term survivors. Climbing over a toppled magazine rack, he entered through the broken front window and went for the freezers. After a quick search, he opened the still sealed door, and with great effort held back the sudden urge to vomit. There was very little that the man could be shown that would make his stomach churn. So much death had been witnessed and dealt for that to be of any concern, it was the thick air billowed from behind the door and washed over him, smelling so thick with the summers rot he could taste it. The freezer doors had stayed air tight long after the electricity had gone out, and the brick building had effectively baked the corpses in the air tight tomb encasing its inhabitants.
Dropping to a knee, he pulled his shirt over the bridge of his nose. It provided little protection except for the scent of sweat masking the death in the back room. The exceptionally awful remnants of the chamber made him aware of his instincts again. He gripped the nightstick on his belt and flipped his wrist, extending it out in a series of rapid clicks.
Regaining his composure he froze for a moment and listened. After a month of silence, certain primal traits were beginning to return. It was either through some form of collective conscience or necessity, but the details mattered little to him.
Usually it was only a matter of luck if that stench was not accompanied by one of the not-quite-dead. He was unsure in this instance, knowing that the sealed room may have held its tainted air until this moment. He found the steel door and tried to ease it open. The latch caught and made an uncomfortably loud snapping noise. There was still silence. The dim light barely illuminated beyond the showcase of goods and its glass doors on the fridge locker’s perimeter. Broken glass betrayed each step as it was crushed under his boots.
Satisfied that whatever occupants inside had since expired; he lowered the baton and walked toward the shelves that held gallon jugs of water. He was once again aware of the heat of his surroundings. Inside the freezer it had to have been well over 110 degrees. He took a small bottle and drank most of it, using the remnants to splash his face and the nape of his neck, and then moving on to the reason he was there. He kneeling, he grabbed two of the larger containers.
A small and pitiful moan was let out from his right. He snapped back to his feet, baton ready and eyes focused. He could now see the fridge’s sentry, backed into a corner and seemingly immobile. Its right arm was contorted in a way that was anything but natural, making a full right angle a few inches from the elbow. Its skin was dry and lesions had appeared; its eyes sunken in, pupils impossible to see in the dim light. Its movement like a seizure, it twitched in a vain attempt to stand. The being moaned as though a human would if their throat were filled with sawdust and filth.
He swung in a large downward arc, the steel weight making contact with exposed skull with a crushing thud. The former store clerk’s seizing stopped immediately, the right portion of its forehead had been encaved.
With his bounty of water and other essentials, he moved on.